Netcare to give patients digital health-care data
Consumers have access to multiple apps on their phone, but what about their health data? asks Netcare hospital group CEO Richard Friedland.
“How is it that you can have your emails, Facebook or ... whatever app you want on the front page of your mobile [phone], but your most important thing: your health care? Where’s that information stored?”
From 2023, patients leaving Netcare hospitals or Akeso mental health clinics will be able to access their hospital discharge summary, procedure information and list of prescribed medicines, under MyNetcare online, a digital portal that offers patients quality surveys and allows the booking of doctor appointments.
Friedland was speaking to Business Day after the release of Netcare’s results for the year to end-September, in which it posted an increase in revenue of 9.8% in the second half, with that for the full year up 3% to R21.6bn.
Profit for the year surged 38.2% to R1.05bn and operating profit rose one-tenth to R2.28bn, after its performance was hampered by the pandemic in the prior two years.
EMPOWER
The group has been following an electronic patient record and digitising strategy in its hospitals and Medicross doctor and dentist rooms since 2019.
Friedland said: “We’ve never been able to give people records. We’ve never been able to empower them to say, listen, this is what happened to you in hospital, in Akeso or at Medicross.”
By April, all Netcare hospitals will have been added to the group’s hospital electronic system CareOn, which includes the digitalisation of medical records, scripts, patients’ blood and other pathology test results and radiology results, including X-rays.
This electronic system, which is already in place at 21 hospitals representing more than 4,880 beds and 188 operating theatres, is integrated with electronic equipment in ICU and high-care wards in what Netcare describes as a “transformational health-care project of unprecedented scale and complexity on the African continent”.
Its renal centres offering dialysis care, cancer treatment centres and Netcare 911 paramedic services are already digitised.
In SA’s sluggish economy, companies are increasingly looking for ways to reduce operational costs or to steal market share from competitors by offering consumers better service or products.
The medical aid industry has been stagnant with about 8.9million main members for years, meaning hospital groups face limited growth prospects in SA.
Netcare’s strategic projects, which incurred operational costs of R249m, up from the previous period’s R172m, need to meet one of three criteria: differentiate the patient’s experience; grow margins and improve returns; or help the group grow at a pace above the market, Friedland told a webinar.
He said the digitisation project will continue to add value, cutting repetitive paperwork to save nurses’ time, ensuring better records, which reduces the risk of medico-legal lawsuits, and improving patient safety and outcomes.
There are more than 13,775 users of the hospital digital CareOn system, most of whom are nurses, while 2,170 doctors are able to access patient data remotely.
Netcare is adding 8GB of patient and clinical information a day, with 1,900 concurrent users of the hospital system at any time.
The group plans to use artificial intelligence to mine or make sense of anonymised data and predict health outcomes or severe complications, while working within SA’s strict legal framework on patient and data privacy.
There are some financial benefits to the new system, with savings already made on stationary and paper record-keeping costs. For example, Netcare spends R12m a year on paper record-keeping, with this expected to halve over the next 10 years.
SUBDUED
In a subdued environment, with limited expansion opportunities apart from mental health care, Netcare is looking at the insurance market, and selling gap cover to medical aid members who may face shortfalls when in hospital.
It has added a new product for people whose medical schemes restrict hospital access to a certain network, which would allow scheme members who buy it to use Netcare hospitals without additional fees.
It also offers insurance to those without cover, giving the group access to millions of employed people who rely on the state for care but would prefer private care in instances such as emergencies.
With occupancy close to preCovid-19 levels, Netcare predicts a 6.5%–7.5% increase in patient days in hospital in the financial year 2023, compared with this reporting period.
In the absence of further severe Covid-19 waves, normalised revenue in the next financial year, which began in October, will be up 9%-12%, it predicted.